SACRAMENTO: The California Family Council strongly opposes the following pieces of legislation being considered by the Senate and Assembly during the last six days of the 2020 legislative session.
AB 2218: Bill to fund sterilizing drugs and surgeries for children and adults with gender dysphoria.
The bill, authored by Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D – Los Angeles), establishes an “LGBT Transgender Wellness Fund,” to provide grants to nonprofits, hospitals, health care clinics (like Planned Parenthood), and other medical providers to pay for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mastectomies for minors (as young as 13), as well as cross-sex hormones and “sex-change” operations for adults. Originally the bill asked for $15 million to start the fund, but that amount was recently removed from the bill text. Now the exact amount added to the fund will be decided by the legislature at a later date.
Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, said this about AB 2218, “This isn’t the fulfillment of personal autonomy – this is the celebration of acts of cruelty.”
Read more here…
SB-132: Gives Male Inmates the Legal Right to be Housed in Women’s Prisons
This bill, authored by Senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco), would allow any incarcerated male to claim that he has a feminine “gender identity” and give them a legal right to be housed at a women’s facility. Correctional facility staff, contractors and volunteers would be forced to use language pretending that inmates are the gender they identify as, including but not limited to the following gender identities: “Neither exclusively male nor female or is in between or beyond both of those genders, including, but not limited to, gender fluid, agender or without gender, third gender, genderqueer, gender variant, and gender nonconforming.” It also includes genders such as “transsexual,” “two-spirit,” “māhū,” “Nonbinary,” and “intersex.”
Facility officials would be forbidden from considering anatomy, the presence or absence of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and the presence or absence of any other physical or mental health diagnosis when determining housing. For more details read the bill here or read these CFC articles.
SB 1237 and AB 890: Lowering health standards for abortion providers again
In 2013, AB-154 lowered the health safety standards for women in California by letting non-physicians, including nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and certified nurse-midwives do first-trimester surgical and medical abortions. State legislators are at it again this year with the introduction of SB 1237, a bill authored by Senator Bill Dodd (D – Napa) to remove the requirement that certified nurse-midwives be directly supervised by a doctor. AB 890, authored by Assemblyman Jim Wood (D – Eureka) does the same thing for physician assistants. According to the Right to Life League, these bills threaten women’s safety and the lives of unborn children. Read their analysis here.
SB 145 Lowers the penalties for adults who have sex with same-sex minors
Senator Scott (D – San Francisco) introduced SB 145 giving judges discretion over whether to make an adult register as a sex offender if they had sex with a willing same-sex minor. The discretion is only allowed if the minor victim is 14-year-old or older and the statutory rapist is less than ten years older. That means a judge can give a break to a 24-year-old who seduces a same-sex 14-year-old. The law currently and wrongly gives the same judicial discretion to similar statutory rape cases if the victim and perpetrator are opposite sex.
Read more here.
AB 1145 Lowers the mandated reporting requirements for some statutory rape cases
This bill, authored by Assembly Member Cristina Garcia (D – Downey), changed the reporting requirements for mandated reporters if the perpetrator is younger than 21, the minor victim is 16 or older, and the sexual activity is consensual. This means a high school teacher who knows or suspects one of her female students is having sex with a 20-year-old man, they are no longer required to report it to authorities. This bill is especially concerning in light of how many LGBT organizations are sponsoring social events between young teenagers and young adults. See the following fliers for LGBT social events.
Call to Action
These bills will be voted on over the next six days, with the final day of the 2020 legislative session on Monday, August 31.
Call your member of the Senate and Assembly and let them know your concerns regarding the bills above. Find your California Senate and Assembly members’ contact information here.
